3 ms·

> Windows still rules the roost, though it wouldn’t be referred to as Win32 today for various reasons. Win32 is stable, supported and will stay supported forev

> Windows still rules the roost, though it wouldn’t be referred to as Win32 today for various reasons. Win32 is stable, supported and will stay supported forever, as various technologies built on top of it come and go. It is the API for the OS. > Linux is even more important today, given the Steam Deck and Proton Which uses Win32 under the hood! There is a running joke that Win32 is the Linux's most stable API.

xeonmc 1y ago
Win32 will be preserved forever in a glass museum case with life support bolted on -- just like how in Valve’s Source Engine, the Quake physics component (Qphysics) is treated as a ancient artifact to be called upon when its power needs to be channeled, but kept isolated from the "normal" VPhysics lest its Eldritch power corrupt the rest of the codebase. Though judging from how CS2 is going, it seems that the quarantine measures aren’t particularly airtight.
- flohofwoe 1y ago
  > Win32 will be preserved forever in a glass museum case with life support bolted on And that's a good thing because for game development you don't need much more from the OS, just enough to get a window, input events, audio and networking. All the interesting stuff all happens in the 3D APIs, and those have changed a lot since the early 2000s.
deaddodo 1y ago
What you’re referring to as “Win32” is WinAPI and its derivative/wrapper technologies. Which can include WinRT, WinUI3, MFC, etc. And “Win32” as a reference to the platform is well gone, as it’s exclusively “Win64” on the x86 side these days. Thus why I said it would be unlikely he would refer to it as “Win32” specifically today. But yes, if you conflate “Win32” to “native Windows API” (even that term will be controversial, so replace “native” with “legacy” at your preference), it’s all the same today as then.
- flohofwoe 1y ago
  Nah, in the gamedev world Win32 has a pretty focused meaning: the subset of Windows system DLLs that are needed for game development, and that subset is pretty small, just enough to get an empty window, DXGI swapchain, D3D device, audio output, input and maybe networking, e.g. kernel32, user32, ole32, gdi32, dxgi, d3d11/d3d12 is pretty much all you need. Except for the 3D API, the requirements for game development on the OS haven't changed much since around WinXP, and the fact that Win32 hasn't changed much since WinXP is still the greatest quality of Windows (since anything that came after the classic Win32 APIs was pretty much a shitshow - with the notable exception of DirectX).
pjmlp 1y ago
Win32 as pure C API has stagnated in Windows XP view of the world. Since Windows Vista, most new APIs have been introduced as COM libraries, exception being DDK and extending versions of existing ones with new nummeric or Ex suffixes. Besides COM, other ones have been based on WinRT, which is COM upgraded to use .NET metadata instead of type libraries, and an additional base interface for reflection, IInspectable.
IlikeKitties 1y ago
> There is a running joke that Win32 is the Linux's most stable API. It's genuinely true. With the exception of the Linux ABI, everything else is in constant flux. I think systemd has slowly taken over the world to the point that it's not going anywhere but beyond that it gets really thin.
tonyedgecombe 1y ago
>Win32 is stable, supported and will stay supported forever, as various technologies built on top of it come and go. I wouldn't assume that. The journey towards the web as an application delivery platform is making Win32 less relevant as time goes on.

xeonmc 1y ago

Win32 will be preserved forever in a glass museum case with life support bolted on -- just like how in Valve’s Source Engine, the Quake physics component (Qphysics) is treated as a ancient artifact to be called upon when its power needs to be channeled, but kept isolated from the "normal" VPhysics lest its Eldritch power corrupt the rest of the codebase. Though judging from how CS2 is going, it seems that the quarantine measures aren’t particularly airtight.

flohofwoe 1y ago
> Win32 will be preserved forever in a glass museum case with life support bolted on And that's a good thing because for game development you don't need much more from the OS, just enough to get a window, input events, audio and networking. All the interesting stuff all happens in the 3D APIs, and those have changed a lot since the early 2000s.

deaddodo 1y ago

What you’re referring to as “Win32” is WinAPI and its derivative/wrapper technologies. Which can include WinRT, WinUI3, MFC, etc. And “Win32” as a reference to the platform is well gone, as it’s exclusively “Win64” on the x86 side these days. Thus why I said it would be unlikely he would refer to it as “Win32” specifically today. But yes, if you conflate “Win32” to “native Windows API” (even that term will be controversial, so replace “native” with “legacy” at your preference), it’s all the same today as then.

flohofwoe 1y ago
Nah, in the gamedev world Win32 has a pretty focused meaning: the subset of Windows system DLLs that are needed for game development, and that subset is pretty small, just enough to get an empty window, DXGI swapchain, D3D device, audio output, input and maybe networking, e.g. kernel32, user32, ole32, gdi32, dxgi, d3d11/d3d12 is pretty much all you need. Except for the 3D API, the requirements for game development on the OS haven't changed much since around WinXP, and the fact that Win32 hasn't changed much since WinXP is still the greatest quality of Windows (since anything that came after the classic Win32 APIs was pretty much a shitshow - with the notable exception of DirectX).

pjmlp 1y ago

Win32 as pure C API has stagnated in Windows XP view of the world. Since Windows Vista, most new APIs have been introduced as COM libraries, exception being DDK and extending versions of existing ones with new nummeric or Ex suffixes. Besides COM, other ones have been based on WinRT, which is COM upgraded to use .NET metadata instead of type libraries, and an additional base interface for reflection, IInspectable.

IlikeKitties 1y ago

> There is a running joke that Win32 is the Linux's most stable API. It's genuinely true. With the exception of the Linux ABI, everything else is in constant flux. I think systemd has slowly taken over the world to the point that it's not going anywhere but beyond that it gets really thin.

tonyedgecombe 1y ago

>Win32 is stable, supported and will stay supported forever, as various technologies built on top of it come and go. I wouldn't assume that. The journey towards the web as an application delivery platform is making Win32 less relevant as time goes on.